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	Ex-pastor Welcomes Prison By Jane Sims London Free Press August 28, 2008 http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Local/2008/08/28/6595946-sun.html Disgraced Baptist pastor Royden Wood seemed unconcerned he may end up in jail next week. With a bravado he showed during his trial, Wood, 58, the former senior pastor at the now-defunct Ambassador Baptist Church, said he "enjoyed jail" outside court after his sentencing hearing yesterday. "It was fun. It doesn't scare me a bit," he said, his wife Linda by his side. "I had a good time there," he said of his time awaiting bail. "I have an intense and passionate desire to help people and I was a tremendous blessing to many in jail. The other inmates were constantly asking me, 'Why are you so happy?' It's easy to be in jail. It's hard to be out here." Wood was convicted in April nine assaults on three boys at the church's alternative school in the 1980s, and three sex-related charges involving two female church members who had breasts touched over their clothing. Six more sexual assault charges were laid in July. The three boys, now adults -- Richard Howell, 35, his brother Norman Howell, 36, and John Milonas, 35 -- gave emotional victim impact statements describing the scars left from Wood's discipline program of abuse and beatings. They told of humiliation, emotional detachment from loved ones, failures in school, and extremely low self-esteem. "He constantly made me feel like a a bad person," said Norman Howell. Milonas said he was told "I was scum and I would never amount to anything. I am under extreme pressure from myself not to be like him." Superior Court Justice Lynda Templeton, who will sentence Wood Tuesday, also heard Wood suffers from an untreated mental illness. Wood's lawyer, Wendy Harris-Bentley, argued her client, who has no criminal record, should be eligible for a conditional sentence, perhaps an electronic ankle bracelet. Backed by 30 letters of support and a psychiatric assessment diagnosing Wood as "absolutely bipolar," Harris-Bentley stressed Wood, whose illness is marked by grandiose ideas and manic behaviour, is a low risk to reoffend and is willing to get help. Assistant Crown attorney Peter Kierluk said a conditional sentence was wrong given the lengthy abuse inflicted on the boys. He suggested a jail term with three years of probation. Outside of court, all three victims talked of the weight lifted off their shoulders. Richard Howell stood with a New Testament in hand. "The Bible clearly warns us of false teachers, obviously judgment came for him."
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